Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. The Labour Party will vote in favour of the Bill because we believe the eviction ban should be extended but we do not believe the Bill has gone far enough. I have tabled an amendment extending the eviction ban to at least March, allowing the ban to be enforced when any limit is put on movement and allowing the ban when people are allowed only to travel within their county. The Minister served the constituency, but some would say county, of Fingal. If people in Fingal were to lose their house and be evicted, it might not just be Fingal where they would look for available properties. They might also look at counties Louth and Meath. It is important, if we go to level 3 and are limited to travel within counties, that evictions would not be allowable.

The virus will not magically go away within seven weeks and in all likelihood we will be back here again after Christmas. The Labour Party and other parties tabled amendments in July that would have dealt with these issues and allowed the Minister to extend the eviction ban based on his own judgment. It would have avoided unnecessary stress for renters about losing their home in the middle of a pandemic. There is every chance that somebody who was evicted in August will not yet have found alternative accommodation. The degree of uncertainty is not fair to renters who, as well as living through a pandemic, are living in a country that has some of the worst protections for renters and face the threat of being evicted on loose grounds. We also have an underresourced Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. I am glad the Minister, through the budget, has addressed some of the RTB's underresourcing to enable it to deal with some complaints. I expect the position to improve next year.

When the seven-week period is up, evictions will occur. There have been evictions since August. They started after the previous protections were abolished by the Government. I will give the House a flavour of some of the cases I have dealt with. One involved a mother living in two-bedroom accommodation with her son who is in a wheelchair. She is in receipt of the homeless housing assistance payment. The family had been in emergency accommodation but had been given notice until the end of October and are now nearing the end of that notice. They have found a new place but it is much more expensive.

In another case, residents of a house with 12 units were served with notice before the previous eviction ban by the family of the deceased landlord. They are ignoring the terms of the suspension notice since the previous eviction ban. This case has gone to the RTB but one resident is concerned that she will be homeless before the RTB case is heard.

The landlord of a family of six, who have spent nine years in the house and 11 years on the council waiting list, has stated he is planning to sell the house in the new year. This family should not be still fighting to get a permanent home after such a long time on the waiting list. When the family transferred from rent allowance to the housing assistance payment from rent allowance, they were moved backwards on the list.

In another case, a landlord is refusing to extend the tenancy of a person in receipt of the housing assistance payment. This case involves a single mother and her daughter. The landlord constantly visits the property. The family have nowhere to go and they feel they are being harassed to leave the accommodation. They are living in very poor conditions.

Another case involves a working family. Both parents are from abroad and they have one small child. They now live in new accommodation after being asked to leave by the landlord. The notice they were given was much shorter than is legal required and they were told this was because the property was being zoned. They left the property unaware of the rights they had.

Between 2 August and 24 September, the RTB was notified of 753 warning letters issued by landlords. Threshold reported in September that 128 tenants received an invalid notice of termination from their landlords, meaning approximately 56% of notices that went to Threshold were invalid.Threshold tells me that this is high compared with normal standards. No-fault evictions and evictions for very wide circles of family members returned in the middle of a pandemic. Evictions to allow for a potential sale at a future point returned in the middle of a pandemic, as did evictions to allow for substantial renovations.

This Bill links protections for renters with movements being restricted to a 5 km radius because the Minister, on legal advice, considers any moratorium on evictions to be vulnerable to constitutional challenge, as he has repeatedly emphasised. This idea has not really been tested in the recent past. He said that such measures are only constitutionally permissible when there are restrictions on movement. There is much discussion about taking personal responsibility for dealing with the spread of the virus. We have limits on movement, on social interaction, on seeing our families and on our ability to protest. So much of what we have taken for granted has been constricted by legislation and penalties, more of which we will be considering in the House this afternoon. That is fine because we are all in a fight against this global pandemic. What I do not understand, however, is why private property rights seem to be sacrosanct during the pandemic with regard to the ending of the eviction ban. We are all playing our part and putting our lives on hold to fight this virus. Landlords and property owners must also do so.

The Government is leaving families open to eviction from their homes a few weeks before Christmas in the middle of a pandemic. We know that evictions in the private rented sector are one of the main contributors to family homelessness. The Taoiseach has emphasised that, when level 5 restrictions lapse, the Government intends to move the whole country to level 3. Movement will be restricted for cocooners and those living with underlying restrictions. They may be forced out of their homes and our amendment seeks to address this. The priority of the Labour Party and the Opposition in the Seanad is to keep people safe and in their homes. That is why we are tabling these amendments today.